


Love and Despair

by fantasychica37



Category: TOLKIEN J. R. R. - Works & Related Fandoms, The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types, The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien, The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: F/M, Frodo cameo, Fëanor cameo, Gen, Mirror of Galadriel, The One Ring - Freeform, Valentine's Day, almost everyone mentioned, for my Today in Middle-earth thing on my Tumblr blog of the same username, the & relationships are barely mentioned sorry if you were looking for more, what does freeform mean why is that the only one ring tag, without Valentine's Day
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-14
Updated: 2019-02-14
Packaged: 2019-10-28 14:41:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 757
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17789297
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fantasychica37/pseuds/fantasychica37
Summary: Today in Middle-earth, 2/14/(30)19: The Mirror of Galadriel.Happy Valentine's Day, everyone.(I promise the title was chosen with a purpose and is not just another bad title.)





	Love and Despair

**Author's Note:**

> Elrond is referred to as Galadriel's cousin-son because he was just her cousin (in multiple ways) for millennia before he was her son-in-law. Arda means Earth in Quenya; Ennor means Middle-earth (just the one continent) in Sindarin.

_She lifted up her white arms, and spread out her hands toward the East in a gesture of rejection and denial._  
The light of the Evening Star, the Star of Hope, the Silmaril that had killed countless of her family and saved the rest, catches upon her Ring of Power with which she guards and rules her realm.  
This is what she came to Middle-earth for. She is power and light. She has achieved her dreams.  
And yet…  
 _“Do you not see now wherefore your coming is to us as the footstep of Doom? For if you fail, then we are laid bare to the Enemy. Yet if you succeed, then our power is diminished, and Lothlórien will fade, and the tides of Time will sweep it away. We must depart into the West, or dwindle to a rustic folk of dell and cave, slowly to forget and to be forgotten.”_  
(Shall we mourn here deedless for ever, a shadow-folk, mist-haunting, dropping vain tears in the thankless sea?)  
Looking at the long-awaited Doom before her, she understands her uncle at last, and her longing swells in her heart until her very soul is on fire and she can barely breathe from the pain of it.  
And Frodo offers it to her.  
She cannot say no. She cannot. This is her life’s desire, this is all she has. Only this can replace the desperate longing that she can never fulfill. And she wants- with ultimate power in her reach, her youthful dreams awaken again and she is once again Artanis, unstained by grief and long struggle and Sea-longing, and she wants with a purity that overcomes the rules that tell her no, the no that she had listened to when she alone waited out the glorious First Age in Doriath at the feet of an Ainu only to be attacked by her own kin and attempt to fight but end up fleeing helpless.  
No more.  
Galadriel’s hopes and dreams lie before her, in one tiny hand.  
She will preserve her realm and her power, preserve the good that came from millennia of war and struggle and the deaths of nigh all her kin, grow even greater than she had dreamed when she set off across the Ice wrapped in a bear hide and afire with hope.  
With all the power of one who sang the very world into being, she will become beautiful and terrible as the Morning and the Night! Fair as the Sea that would take away her only other hope, and the Sun that rose in flame above their promised land, and the Snow upon the Mountain that dominated every horizon in her homeland! Dreadful as the Storm and the Lightning! Stronger than the foundations of the very earth. All shall love her and despair!  
But true love goes both ways.  
And love makes the difference between Light and Dark.  
Her husband and her cousin-son and her grandchildren - brief as they may be, her people and her friends, her daughter and her brother and her parents and uncles and aunts across the sea who receive word of Ennor from incoming ships, those who wait in the Halls to join them, all the peoples of Middle-earth she has come to know and love, the brave Halfling standing before her…  
Better she despair than they.  
She lets her hand fall.  
(Happy Valentine’s Day, everyone.)  
****  
“We love you, too,” whispers Varda Elentári, aloud, far off to the West and across a way concealed. She turns – not with her physical form but with her being – to her husband.  
 _Shall we send a message with Olórin when he returns to Arda?_  
 _We shall_ , Manwë confirms, pride bubbling up within him.  
 _A message to Arafinwë and Eärwen would not be amiss, either. They already worry deeply for what will happen to their daughter at the end of this war_ , Varda suggests.  
 _I will send Eönwë to them next_ , Manwë promises, regretful that he cannot leave to deliver the messages himself. They have remained unmoving and grave on Taniquetil for nigh on a Mannish year (and will remain so until Saruman is dispersed that November).  
But despite the uncertainty ahead and the sorrows that will come no matter what happens, Manwë’s spirit is laced with joy, and Varda involuntarily breaks into a smile.  
She turns her head, then, to look at Manwë, and his gaze does not break from the East, but he is smiling too.  
 _I love you_ , they tell each other.  
And the stars that night shine a little brighter.

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Valentine's Day. I hope it is filled with love.


End file.
